How To Find The “Sound Driver” For Windows?

A Guide To Help You To Install A Sound Drivers In Your Windows

We’ve covered the topic of Sound driversin our recent articles. For those who missed it, drivers are the pretty cool things that enable the software to take advantage of all the capabilities of your hardware.

They let programs communicate with the physical stuff in your PC, and (when installed properly in their latest versions) let them utilize their fullest potential.;

And that’s nice because if you’re not taking advantage of the hardware in your rig, then what’s point of having it in the first place.

So, Why Sound Drivers?

Now, sound drivers are a bit special. Not special in the sense that they’ll buy you a drink and take you to the movies, but they’re different. How? Well, for starters, unlike the rest of the stuff in your computer, you (well, most people, at least, but chances are pretty good that you’re included in that group) have two different pieces of sound hardware installed.

Unlike a graphics card, which takes over the visual renderings completely from the motherboard’s onboard hardware as soon as it is installed, a sound card does not bother doing this.

It’s like that guy who works at the office who doesn’t get fired when they’re hiring a new because he’s a decent worker and it’s a good idea to keep him around in case he’s needed. 🙂

The onboard sound will usually stay connected to one of the ports (unless you disconnect it to prevent exactly this) and can still be used in case the need arises.

So, let’s see how to install both of them to get on with it:

First, check the model numbers of your Sound Card or motherboard or, in the case of laptops, the model number of the system itself.

You can check the Sound card’s name by going to the Hardware display (Right click My Computer -> Properties -> Hardware). Go to Device Manager and choose Sound.

The motherboard’s model is a bit more complicated. Of course, you could find this out manually – dig up your ‘Old box of computer stuff’ and check the packaging, or open up the case and check the lettering just above the Motherboard and beside the Ram slots, which is where the model number is usually specified.

But an easier option for Windows 10 and Windows 8users is to just bring up the Power User Task Menu (Windows Key + X), go to Run, type msinfo32, and press enter.

For Windows 7 users, go to Start Menu And Search for System Information. Your motherboard manufacturer will be listed as System Manufacturer and the model will be listed as System Model.

Or you can also go to command prompt (by pressing the Windows Key + R and then type the “Cmd” in the run commander) and type this prompt command to bring up the system’s detail;

wmic baseboard get product,Manufacturer,version,serialnumber>

It will return the information to the command screen. For pre-built computers purchased directly from the manufacturer, like those from Dell or HP, the System Utility will sometimes list the computer model and not the motherboard model, in which case you’ll need to search by the system model to get the information.

In the case of laptops, just turn it over and you can see the laptop’s model number underneath; now do a quick search and find out what you’re dealing with.

Ooookay, so all of that turned out to be a bigger pain in the, you-know-what than we expected.

But you have the hardware models. Now what?

Go to the manufacturer’s website and grab the latest drivers. Remember, for desktops who have a sound card installed in it, need to download two drivers both for the Sound Card and the Motherboard.

And you’ll always need to remember one more thing that the 32-bit drivers will not work on a 64-bit OS. Vice-versa installations have been known to work, but they can develop problems. Pick the right version just to be sure, and stay safe rather than sorry.

You might be tempted to forgo everything that we just said and just jump to the hardware’s disc that came along with it;

So you can install the provided driver and call it a day, but remember, this will only give you the driver that was available at the time. You will not get updates so you’ll have to update it yourself;

And if that’s the case it’s easier to just install directly from the manufacturer’s site itself.

Once you have the drivers just install them, your system will show the driver’s status in the Device Manager;

Remember though, if you’re using program-specific drivers (as we mentioned earlier, Hardware Manufacturers release updated versions of their drivers on a regular basis to support the latest programs, and this is doubly the case with Graphics Cards and Video Games). Good graphics optimization can be the make-or-break point for a game, and Game Developers often have deals in place with Nvidia and Radeon to get the best performance out of their latest hardware.

This, however, isn’t usually the case with Sound Drivers;

Because their work is a lot simpler than that of a GPU, a Sound Driver doesn’t need to be specifically optimized for a software or a video game.

Once installed, it does its job quietly and doesn’t make a fuss. So while you can (and should) switch between graphics driver based on the program or the game that you’re currently running, you can safely leave your Sound Driver alone. Just keep it up-to-date, and that’s it!

Or In case, just like most of the non-computer friendly people;

If you still having some problem to finding the compatible drivers or maybe having some issue related to installing the drivers;

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Hii guys,
My name is Madhur Taneja and I’m a Computer Hardware Engineer and I proudly love to teach about computer software & hardware repairing stuffs. My hobby is blogging about computer problems solutions and I'm also doing some social work by helping my website's guest users to fix their problem by deskdecode's technical support page.